Trivia / Mister Miracle (2017)

• Creator-Driven Successor: To Tom King's The Vision (2015). Both are psychological horror stories about Happily Married superheroes dealing with some Mind Screw-y situations. Dan DiDio even confirmed that King was given the go-ahead with this project specifically as DC's follow-up to The Vision.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: During an interview on Strange Adventures (2020), Tom King described Mister Miracle as "probably the best thing I ever wrote."
• Reality Subtext:
  • Much like most of Tom King's work, Mister Miracle's deeply psychological themes of dealing with depression and PTSD were results of King's extensive history of the two. In a more specific series of events, 2016 was a time where he suffered a massive panic attack and faced increasing anxiety over Donald Trump's inevitable presidency, which directly inspired the series' narrative of waking up in a world that suddenly doesn't make any sense and trying to cope within it.
  • King also mentions that right as he was hospitalized after his panic attack, his estranged father called him up to let him know that his grandmother — who had raised him — had suddenly died that same day. While there are definite in-universe reasons for it, this is probably a good reason why Scott Free has developed animosity against both Darkseid and Highfather, while Granny Goodness is played with a more sympathetic edge.
  • A layered example: King was also inspired by the subtext found within Jack Kirby's original New Gods and Mister Miracle works, assessing that much of it was inspired by his own personal turmoil — from Scott Free being a symbol of Kirby's desires to be free from the niche industry he was ostensibly already a "god" of, to the whole caricature of Funky Flashman representing his disdain with Stan Lee over his purported hijacking of their collaborations. There's also the fact that Scott's son is named Jacob, which was Kirby's birth name, while their second child is named Rosalind, named after Kirby's wife, Rosalind Goldstein, which can be interpreted as the Fourth World mythos giving further poignancy to Kirby's life.
  • Building off of the last point, the entire dynamic of Funky being a doting Honorary Uncle to the young, already-imaginative Jacob Free is seen as King's way of giving a symbolic reconciliation between Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. In real life, Kirby held a grudge against Lee — the bigger showman of the two — for taking credit as the creator of their classic collaborations, ensuring no shortage of legal battles over ownership with Marvel. However, Lee had always held Kirby in high regard, and especially following the latter's passing, assured that Kirby was the true genius masterminding their work, neatly paralleled by Funky and Jacob developing a story together about a "Stareater" and his herald (itself an allusion to Galactus and Silver Surfer), with Funky claiming "[Jacob] provides all the imaginations! I do the words!" During the final issue, Funky parts with Jacob saying "We have nothing to reproach ourselves about!", which were reportedly the last words Kirby spoke to Lee before he passed away, a nod to how in a way, the two did make peace in their lifetimes.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The impetus for the series came about when Tom King went out for drinks with Dan Didio shortly after King's plans for a Batman sidestory, "The War of Jokes and Riddles", was integrated into a main Story Arc in Batman (Tom King), subsequently robbing him of another partnership with artist Mitch Gerads in favor of main artist Mikel Janin. When King expressed interest in another collaboration with Gerads, DiDio offered him the choice between doing an Atomic Knights or Mister Miracle book. King actually first chose Atomic Knights, but then DiDio pointed out that "Mister Miracle will sell 2,000 more copies" and changed his mind.
  • As the Director's Cut of the first issue reveals, instead of a cartoon of himself, Scott was going to be watching the classic Looney Tunes short Duck Amuck in the hospital, but they couldn't use it due to copyright issues.
  • According to King in one interview, the gag regarding the urinal leading way to the prisoners at the bottom originally did show piss hitting the prisoner's head, but Executive Meddling changed it to spit.

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